The 13 California siblings discovered Sunday held captive in deeply abusive conditions were permitted to keep journals, investigators have learned. In fact, authorities have found hundreds of journals in the California home where the malnourished children's parents, David and Louise Turpin, allegedly chained them to furniture, refused to let them outdoors, and gave them only one meal per day.
The journals are difficult to read because of the siblings' limited language development, but investigators expect them to provide "strong evidence of what occurred in that home" as the case proceeds to trial. "There is a good chance that being able to write may have kept them sane," James Pennebaker, a psychologist with expertise in writing as a response to trauma, told USA Today. "In an interesting way, this may have helped them come to terms with the bizarre world they lived in."
A man in Texas who purchased the Turpins' former home also shed light on their living conditions, sharing photos of the property's filthy, unlivable interior at the time of the sale. After the house became uninhabitable, the Turpins brought a double-wide trailer to their property and lived in that instead.
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